Colored text: Approve or disapprove?

[Kaoru]

Hi everyone,

I am putting up a poll on the use of colored text in response to a bit of a discussion on it in the "Behaving ourselves" thread.

After you take the poll, please post what you chose and explain why. We already know people feel it is impolite and annoying, but those really are blanket statements. I'd like clear reasons why people do not like it. Or, if they DO like it, please explain why as well.

I will wager that at least 99% of the forum will say they do not like it. I think it is better to have a proof of this, rather than to just tell people not to use colored text.

I will go first. Though I think colored text looks nice, after a while of seeing it all the time, it hurts my eyes. I think if we all used different colors, this forum would end up being hard to read. Using colored text within a post occasionally, doesn't bother me.

Kaoru

[suneohair]

hmm, dont know if its just me but having colored text in posts that im reading doesnt strike me as being impolite. i am betting that most forumers here would only be using them to emphasize certain sentences or statements of their post. It really does not matter to me.

[~Slippy~]

I don't mind as long as it's easily readable, I'd say that black is easiest colour to read, using colour to emphasise words is fine, writing in blue is also okay, just like in school, you either wrote in blue or black, but if I have to struggle to see the words, it looses my interest and I just make a mental note of who are the attention whores!

[Kaoru]

Oh, I should add, since when I put this up, I noticed the edit limit was already up(Strange... I thought new thread posts were connected to the polls section?), that I ought to have said that some felt it was impolite and annoying... I wasn't trying to imply that all people felt that way. It is just I noticed that some felt that way, in the thread I mentioned. So, thus the reason for this poll. I wanted to find out the consensus on this.

Thanks everyone for taking the time to vote!

Kaoru

[batusai.]

I don't mind as well as long as it is used sparingly to emphasize something. But, if used too often and in addition to that, using larger font makes it an eyesore. It only makes it like ad in ebay - loud and crass. LOL!

[atgm]

I picked black, but I really prefer the default color of whatever theme the forum happens to be running; these colors are generally chosen for readability more than anything.

[Moonrise]

I care more about what a person writes than the color in which they write it.

However, there is a usability issue to be considered. When one writes in the default color, it shows up black on white backgrounds, but if you're using a theme with a dark background, that default color shows up light for contrast and readability. When one uses a color tag, the text is always that color, regardless of the theme of the viewer, which can render it difficult to read due to low contrast.

[pgsmith]

I equate writing in colored text to wearing a gold sequined hakama. There's nothing in the rules against it, but it definitely screams for attention, which is the antithesis to everything that my sensei have taught me. It is far better to garner any attention through the quality of your actions or words.

[turboyoshi]

I picked black, but I really prefer the default color of whatever theme the forum happens to be running; these colors are generally chosen for readability more than anything.

I agree most with this point. I picked mostly black but that some color was ok only because I can understand there is sometimes a need to emphasize a certain point or word choice. However, even with that said, there are better ways to emphasize your point than with color. Certainly there are more mature ways. Bolding, underlines and italics are more commonly acceptable methods. Using large font sizes and bright colors automatically makes me think there's a child involved. And, it needs to be said, there is an element of rudeness involved even if the author using such tactics isn't intending it. The general rules of netiquette still apply. This means, don't forget you're dealing with real people and, be more concerned with content and clarity of your posts rather than using visual effects.

[Chev-san]

I picked black, but I really prefer the default color of whatever theme the forum happens to be running; these colors are generally chosen for readability more than anything.

spot on for my reason too.

[b8amack]

Maybe one or two words in colour, for emphasis or something. The rest should be default.

[atgm]

Maybe one or two words in colour, for emphasis or something. The rest should be default.

That almost annoys me more than having everything in one weird color. Why not use bold, italics, or underline? Or even just capital letters? We have established typographical conventions for a reason. This goes double for the internet, since colors are indicative of other things, such as links. if i used blue to emphasize something, it would look like a link; red would look like a visited link.

[b8amack]

I used the word maybe. For some settings, black underline looks like a visited link. I prefer italics, myself. That said, I don't think we should all be expected to write in MLA format all of a sudden. This is the internet, after all. I capitalize sentences, some people here don't. I capitalize the letter i when it's the first-person pronoun. Some people (as in your post) don't. Those are things we just have to let slide, on the internet, or we'll be irritated all the time.

[atgm]

I generally capitalize the personal pronoun (notice all of my other posts) and didn't notice that my shift key hadn't worked in that particular sentence... which is really annoying.

[Brian Pettett]

In some e-mail and web interface, blue is used for quoted text. And my habit is to bypass that text, as I've usually already read the original post. So when I see someone posting in blue, my instinct is to ignore the whole post.

But as I told a certain person via PM, blue is one of the most difficult colors to see sharply, as the shorter wavelength tends to make it difficult for the eyes to focus on it. And when compared to black text on a white background (especially with the blue scheme of KWF), there's not nearly enough contrast. While I have decent eyesight, it is gradually worsening. And blue text gives me just enough difficulty in focusing on it that I simply put such people on my Ignore List; it's just too much work to read their daily posts.